TRAVELING WILD

Wildlife on a Low Budget & a Good Attitude

Originally conceived as a TV series for backpackers who wanted to travel to wilderness, Traveling Wild has evolved into a "how-to" for yuppies interested in leaving their money-saturated live behind for a pilgrimmage into wild lands. The idea has evolved through several iterations, starting from a photo safari format called "Adios Rat Race" undertaken by Blue and photographer Stepehen Correl. They traveled to dozens of countries and took in the Serengeti, the Himalayas, the Amazon and the Indian Ocean as subjects for their words and images. Blue then teamed up with fellow Betapunks Mike Cormier and Ron Avey for a trip to the Kalahari Desert, and the production of a hilarious video "Konkrete Kalahari" revived the Traveling Wild concept.

In 2002, Blue traveled with photographer Helmuth Humphrey to Iceland on a pursuit of the aurora borealis, and that journey cemented the transformation of Traveling Wild from a format of backpacking to science-based adventure travel. The video "Shooting Iceland" resulting from that journey and subsequent trips in 2003 and 2006 has been seen by tens of thousands of people on the Net. The video can be seen below:

The actual television series was originally developed for National Geographic by Blue and Phil Berardelli, and after three rounds of review the show was dropped because of the $75,000-per-episode budget. Several years later, Traveling Wild was re-packaged as an in-house TV production for Time-Life Books. The head of retail sales for Time Life called Traveling Wild "unlike any tarvel show I have seen before." The Vice President of Retail & Special Markets, Freddi Szilagi was effusive in his opinions of the show and its commercial possibilities. In an exploratory partnership latter, he wrote:

. . . the show's demo "made me feel like I was a participant and not an observer. You have managed to capture the essence of the exotic locations you filmed in a unique and powerful way. Traveling Wild is a great concept and you have demonstrated the ability to execute your unique vision. This is a product with tremendous broadcast and sales opportunities."

Unable to raise the pilot program funding before Szilagi left Time-Life for Barnes & Noble, Blue constructed the web presence for Traveling Wild and won Mosaicglobe's initial talent awards for Best Writing on a Website in 2006. The site is rarely updated now, and serves mostly as a reminder that the concept itself has value and should be pursued commercially. Everybody wants to see wild animals, but few people have gobs of cash to do so. This series was intended to serve that huge audience of eco-yuppies who longed for the Serengeti but never had enough cash in their accounts because of their addictions to Starbucks and Target. The concept is viable, but probably Blue's ability to realize it is not. You can visit the website by clicking here or on the banner below. For a look at the project Adios Rat Race by Blue and Correl, you can click here to see a gallery of images from the Maasai Mara, the Galapagos, the Indian Ocean, Bolivia, the Himalayas, the Terai, the Seychelles, and the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.